White Paper Deems F-35 as Underperformer

The F-35 Lightning II fighter aircraft is too expensive and not as good as the adversaries it would face in combat, according to a report released by a Washington, D.C.-based think tank that specializes in defense matters. “To perform against near-peer adversaries, the F-35 will have to be capable of executing a range of missions, from defeating enemy aircraft to penetrating enemy air defenses to strike surface targets. But the F-35 will struggle to effectively perform these missions due to shortcomings in its design and program requirements, despite costing between three and nine times more than the 4th-generation aircraft it is designed to replace,” the report, published by the National Security Network, stated. The report went on to call the plane “a bad trillion-dollar bet,” and urged Congress and the Pentagon to find an alternative platform or face the consequence of putting American lives at risk.